It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
